“You consider her very ill, do you not?” gasped Helene.

He answered in the negative; there was no change.  But his face was ashy-white, and he remained seated, overwhelmed by his powerlessness.  Thereupon she also, despite the tension of her whole being, sank upon a chair on the other side of the bed.

“Tell me everything.  You promised to tell me all.  Is she beyond hope?”

He still sat silent, and she spoke again more vehemently: 

“You know how brave I am.  Have I wept? have I despaired?  Speak:  I want to know the truth.”

Henri fixed his eyes on her.  The words came slowly from his lips.  “Well,” said he, “if in an hour hence she hasn’t awakened from this stupor, it will be all over.”

Not a sob broke from Helene; but icy horror possessed her and raised her hair on end.  Her eyes turned on Jeanne; she fell on her knees and clasped her in her arms with a superb gesture eloquent of ownership, as though she could preserve her from ill, nestling thus against her shoulder.  For more than a minute she kept her face close to the child’s, gazing at her intently, eager to give her breath from her own nostrils, ay, and her very life too.  The labored breathing of the little sufferer grew shorter and shorter.

“Can nothing be done?” she exclaimed, as she lifted her head.  “Why do you remain there?  Do something!” But he made a disheartened gesture.  “Do something!” she repeated.  “There must be something to be done.  You are not going to let her die oh, surely not!”

“I will do everything possible,” the doctor simply said.

He rose up, and then a supreme struggle began.  All the coolness and nerve of the practitioner had returned to him.  Till now he had not ventured to try any violent remedies, for he dreaded to enfeeble the little frame already almost destitute of life.  But he no longer remained undecided, and straightway dispatched Rosalie for a dozen leeches.  And he did not attempt to conceal from the mother that this was a desperate remedy which might save or kill her child.  When the leeches were brought in, her heart failed her for a moment.

“Gracious God! gracious God!” she murmured.  “Oh, if you should kill her!”

He was forced to wring consent from her.

“Well, put them on,” said she; “but may Heaven guide your hand!”

She had not ceased holding Jeanne, and refused to alter her position, as she still desired to keep the child’s little head nestling against her shoulder.  With calm features he meantime busied himself with the last resource, not allowing a word to fall from his lips.  The first application of the leeches proved unsuccessful.  The minutes slipped away.  The only sound breaking the stillness of the shadowy chamber was the merciless, incessant tick-tack of the timepiece.  Hope departed with every second.  In the bright disc of light cast by the lamp, Jeanne lay stretched among the disordered bedclothes, with